Let’s talk about names, shall we?

27Feb

Not too long ago my friend went to get eggs or something and the receipt had “Hello, my name is Mayonnaise” as the attendant’s name. I’m not even making this up. It’s all true. So we started talking about how that poor girl, who has a mom who doesn’t understand how cruel other kids can be, should abbreviate her name, or change it completely. My friend suggested Mayo, but come on, it’s still the same thing, so I suggested May. But then I thought that May was way too normal, and that maybe she should use Naise. But then I thought that maybe the idea was to go with an edible name, so I suggested Pie, because who doesn’t like pie, right? So my friend said she’d go with Nutella. I thought it was perfect. It was exotic and sexy. I was even jealous that she was able to come up with such a good name and I couldn’t think of anything better than Pie. So I felt challenged, and started thinking of what kind of name I’d use.

I thought about a bunch of different options. First I wanted to go with something fruit-related, because why not? So I picked Peaches. But then I thought I have nothing in common with peaches, so I started thinking about berries: blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, but that was way too weird, so I moved to pie flavors. Thought first of Apple Pie, but then I thought it sounded too much like Popeye, so I decided to veto my suggestion. Then I thought about Peach Cobbler, but that’s too close to Peaches and I had already decided nothing good could come from that, so veto! So then I moved to beer names, because, of course. But Heineken didn’t really sound like a good sexy name, sounded too authoritarian, and Scotch sounded too masculine, so I finally found it! Of course! It was as if it was right under my nose this whole time and I couldn’t see it. Like grandpa’s glasses. You know, grandpa’s always looking for his glasses and they are right under his nose the whole time.

And here’s a picture of my friend’s receipt to show you I’m not making this all up.

Her mother clearly doesn’t understand how cruel the world can be.

Now, I imagine her mother loves her very much (and probably even more than she loves mayo or even ketchup), but she was not very clever. Come on, kids (an adults) can be pretty cruel with nicknames. I’ve suffered a lot in school and I have a very common, boring name. I can only imagine how much she had to endure. And I do admire her for not changing her name. Kudos, Mayonnaise. Embrace your uniqueness.

Disclaimer: No elephants were harmed in the making of this post. But some Amarula may or may not have been ingested. Just saying.

P.S.: I went on google to find a link for the whole grandpa’s glasses thing and google corrected me saying it’s supposed to be grandma’s glasses. I say it doesn’t matter whose glasses they are. They were right there the whole time!